


if it's the last thing that I do

by Elviella



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Myth Retelling, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elviella/pseuds/Elviella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day she sees the ship with the black sails arrive, Ariadne is wearing red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if it's the last thing that I do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> I was thrilled to have a promt about Ariadne, because wow, what a wonderful lady. This is a retelling of the labyrinth myth with a twist! Dear recipient, I hope you enjoy this story and forgive my tendency to bring optimism even into the depths of the Greek mythology.
> 
> Title is from the song "Sax Rohmer #1" by the Mountain Goats.

The day she sees the ship with the black sails arrive, Ariadne is wearing red. She glances down upon the soft fabric of her jacket, the ruffles of her skirt lined with blues, and then back at the dark dot getting closer and closer.

*

The old woman's hands are wrinkled and stained and warm. She cups soil in one of them, and uses a thin finger to push it around until a seed comes up. 

"Do you know what this is going to be?" She asks. 

It's going to grow, Ariadne knows. It's going to grow and sprout branches and leaves and blossoms. 

The priestess looks at her with fond eyes, as if she knows what she's thinking, and Ariadne looks up solemnly. 

"The seed will grow, yes", the woman says. "It is going to survive. The Earth is going to hold it inside her and feed it and take care of it, and then it's going to poke out and grow, and blossom its way to fullness."

Ariadne pokes one of her thumbs in the soil in her own small cupped hands, until she brings another seed out. 

"But more than that", the woman goes on, "you yourself are like a seed. Your mother held you like the soil will hold these, but now you're out, and you're going to blossom, too, and grow. But you mother is not the only mother you have; the Earth is the other one. The seed is like you. It's like me; like your sister and your friend and the girls in the temples in their green skirts. We all come from the ground, and grow like the trees do. We all go back into it. Earth bore us, earth gave birth to us, earth feeds us and holds us and earth is going to cradle us in our old age. She's one, and she's in you, and in me, and in everything, and that's why we take care of her and celebrate her and honour her with our existence and our actions."

Ariadne presses her hands together, and then separates them. The seed is protected again, safe inside the soil. She rests her hands on her bent knees, and looks around from where she is sitting low on the ground. The world around her shines. 

*

Ariadne has two brothers and a sister:

She doesn’t see her oldest brother a lot. His hair is dark, and long, like hers, and his face is bright with smiling eyes. He fights with the bulls every year, and practices at swordplay and fighting and running, and sometimes picks flowers for her and Phaedra, and holds their hands when they take walks in the central market.

Her sister is a little older than her, and they’ve been the same height since they were very small. Her hair is a warmer colour than Ariadne’s, rich and reddish, like wood or the columns of the palace. She gets angry easily, like their dad, but then she recovers quickly, quite unlike him. Her eyes look smart, Ariadne thinks, and her hands are soft.

Her other brother is strange: his skin is brown, like her own, and he has large-knuckled fingers. His head is that of a calf, and he can’t speak like they do, but he makes sounds and his siblings understand. Asterion, they call him, and his eyes shine like stars. They make him flower crowns, stark against the dark hair and his tiny round horns, and he falls back on the grass, mooing happily.

*

Green are the trees, colourful their blossoms, brown is their skin and the ground they walk on; there's red on the flowers, on the palace walls, on her father's robes. 

Blue is the sky, and the sea.

Ariadne counts the colours of the fruit in the market: yellow bananas from the south, oranges and citruses in the colours of the sunset, olives dark like her hair and lighter ones, like her skin, and greenish ones, like old tree leaves.

Bright flowers, fat cows, ornamental swords with flowers sculpted on their handles, fish, so many shiny fish, and white hens and honey and honey coloured octopuses hung from strings to dry. 

People smile down at her. She only reaches their waists but they bend down to offer her flowers, dark juicy berries, a warm piece of cheesy bread. She says thank you, and please, and the warm faces around her and Androgeus, with his kind eyes and his strong arms, make her feel full and swollen with pleasure. 

*

Icarus has deft hands: he can write as well as a scribe even though he's not much older than Ariadne, and paint, and make small toys out of scraps he finds in his father's workplace.

Icarus is a great friend, to Ariadne's mind. He can fix their broken toys, and he knows lots of stories, and he is brave and curious. They save fruit from their meals and when they meet, they climb up on the roofs and eat them greedily with their feet dangling off the edge, watching the sunset. 

Then they jump from roof to roof, and run on the vast flat levels, and learn how to race silently because neither of their fathers would be pleased to find them there. 

*

Ariadne doesn't have brothers anymore: one of them dies. He's killed, they say, by the boar that was roaming Attica; he was killed, their father screams, by those vile Athenians. 

The other one is a monster now; he grows too fast, and he's bigger, much bigger than her, his horns threatening, and when she learns what they use him for she has nightmares for weeks. Phaedra lets her slip in her bed and holds her cold hands, pushes Ariadne's feet between hers and rubs them to warmth.

Ariadne still has a sister. 

*

Her father is in a constant state of rage these days. She doesn't know if it's so much grief over his son's death, his beautiful, kind son, or anger over the Athenians' disrespect of his authority.

*

The Athenians are crushed, in the end. 

Their punishment, decided at court, by king and council both, is the worst that could be. 

Icarus' dad walks around with eyes even darker, eyebrows drawn down, heavy shoulders. Ariadne feels sorry for him, but truth be told, she doesn't know who to pity first these days. Icarus shrugs, but she can see his face is clouded, too, and feels guilty. 

She crouches down and empties her stomach, shaking violently. Her body feels better, but her soul doesn't. 

*

The market is still rich in fruit; there's still plenty of ships going in and out of the port every day. They still have imported monkeys, and large white shells that will produce deep coloured dyes, and merchants that come streaming in the courtyard. 

It just seems less all in all, and colder. 

In between her mother's silences and her father's fits, Ariadne grows like a seed. Longer hair, longer limbs, a strong chin and arcing eyebrows. The holy women in the temple think her good enough and trust her, and where Ariadne would laugh and shout when she was younger, she smiles politely and strives to fight the absence of feeling in her chest. 

*

"The seed is like you; it's like me, and your mother, your sister and your brothers, your friend, the guards, the priestesses, the sellers and the merchants. Earth bore us and it gave birth to us and it feeds us and protects us. You are no more than me. I am no more than the king, the queen, no more than the servants and the sellers. Earth is in all of us, and we are all her children. Take care of everyone as you would of your siblings, because your siblings they are."

Ariadne holds on to the image of the wise wrinkled face in her head, of the dots of sunlight between the tree leaves, of the rocks and soil under her feet. She holds on to the words like a lost person in the sea holds on to a wrecked mast.

She swears to herself, and to the Earth below. She is not sure what it is she promises, but she will figure it out and then she will do it. 

*

"I need you to do something", Minos tells her one day when the throne room is empty. Ariadne is fifteen, her skirts adorned with the signs of a priestess in training. She turns to him curiously. He's leaning forward on his throne, his eyes strict as always, chin supported on his hand.

"There are guards in the labyrinth, as you know, but every man in this land is afraid of the one inside it."

"Do you want me to take care of Asterion?", she asks, her words weighting on the use of her brother's given name. 

"I want you to be responsible for the labyrinth. See to your brother's needs. You'll be a priestess soon. You will have to cleanse the place, perform the ceremonies, organize the guard."

Ariadne nods. She knows she can't refuse, but she doesn't want to anyway. 

"Of course, father", she says bowing her head. Behind her lashes, she can see Minos's tension lift momentarily from his face. She looks back down. 

*

Icarus hands her a ball of yarn. 

"My dad said you'll be needing this", he says. 

Daedalus should hate her. Icarus should hate her, too, but neither of them seems to and it makes Ariadne want to cry. 

She visits Asterion every day; she talks to him, has at least one meal with him, makes him flower crowns. He's huge now, with the head of a full-grown bull. His eyes are sad, constantly sad to her, and she wonders if she sees what she wants to see, because he's a monster but still her brother.

Every time, when she has to leave, he walks with her to the corridor behind the entrance. Then he walks away and Ariadne comes out alone, the guards turning to greet with respect and a dash of admiration. 

*

The ship from Athens arrives at sunset, black sails against the sky’s oranges and pinks. The Athenian kids, a couple of them as young as twelve, form a procession towards the king. Their clothing is white, shining under the fading light. Some of them are as dark as Ariadne; others are a lighter tone of brown; some of them have hair the colour of wheat and rosy skin. They’re all scared, and all proud. The first one on the line especially, with his dark hair and eyebrows and his well-corded shoulders. He doesn’t kneel when he reaches Minos.

There is no exchange of pleasantries. The dark-haired man is Theseus, the Athenian prince. Ariadne is surprised a king would allow his son to be brought as a lamb to the knife, but then maybe this is all for the best. Theseus is about her own age, with a sturdy built and arms thick with muscle.

The king makes them kneel in the end, even the prince, who looks at him from under his eyebrows with seething eyes.

Easy there, thinks Ariadne. You’re being obvious.

*

After the Athenians have been sealed inside their cells, and the ceremonies have finished, they have dinner. Ariadne expects to feel excited, or nervous at least, but her hands are steady and her body warm. She pushes all thoughts to the back of her head for the hour they stay in the dining room, focuses on the white faces of the women painted on the walls, and chews her food carefully. If her mother looks at her curiously once, she pretends not to notice.

Later still, she visits the prison with Minos. The guards bow their head in respect to both her and her father. He doesn’t do more than throw a glance in every cell to make sure the boys and girls are still safely inside. He doesn’t even talk to Theseus, doesn’t bother with threats or intimidations. He walks past him, and then climbs up the stairs at the end of the corridor. The guards follow him.

She waits until she can no longer hear him, and stands before Theseus’ cell.

He notices her immediately and in the dim light she catches curiousness and wonder in his eyes, before he averts them. 

“There’s a reason I’m here, but I’d like you to look at me first.”

His head shots up, taken by surprise.

“I want to help you, yes, and I need you to be really quiet. Just nod, please.”

The line of his eyebrows is strong and dark, making his eyes look strict, or wild, but now he just looks surprised.

“If you have looked”, she goes on, “you will know that there is a sword under your beddings.”

He nods, so he must have looked.

“It’s a good sword”, she adds hopefully.

He has stopped crouching by then, pulling up to his feet to stand opposite her, but not too close.

“I know you can kill the Minotaur, but you also need a way to get out of the labyrinth. That’s why you’re going to be needing this.”

She kneels, and unties the large knot that had been sitting under her skirt for hours, and pulls it out for him to see.

“You’re going to tie or pin the one end near the door. Then, you are going to hold the ball and walk into the labyrinth. Whichever way you go, it will lead you to him. As the yarn unfolds, it will mark your way, and when you’re done, you’re going to follow it back to the beginning. There will be no guards and you will be able to leave.”

He is watching her closely, by now. His eyes only flicker to her bare chest momentarily, and then shift, as an unuttered apology. She finds his face looks youthful and determined, but also vaguely confused. He finally chooses to speak.

“Why--why are you doing this?”, he whispers.

“Because nobody else can and someone must. And because I chose to.”

Theseus’ eyes gleam in the dark, fixed on her face.

“There’s something more”, she says. “I will need you to take me with you on your journey home.”

She sees his expression change into something shocked and maybe a little repulsed. Her lips tighten.

“I am going to need to talk to your father and negotiate. What we’ve done is unforgivable, but I hope I can change the misery of both my people and yours.”

“Also”, she adds, “my king won’t be thrilled that I helped you.”

*

(A few hours earlier, she'd made the last flower crown she'd ever make for Asterion and placed it on his head. She doesn't pretend it's for his own good and guilt sticks at her throat, pulls at her chest, makes her mouth bitter. She repeats to herself, you're saving the children. She repeats, this needs to stop. And she repeats: Minos is only using him to enforce his authority, and this authority must be wrecked, pulled down and destroyed.

Asterion's eyes remain sad, and a corridor before the exit, Ariadne clasps his hands tightly, tears in her eyes.)

*

She’s waiting in the shadows of the dock, wearing sober, plain clothes, with numerous folds instead of ruffles, and a covered bosom. It’s maybe an hour after dawn when Theseus and the Athenian kids arrive, holding onto each other, Theseus with a sword dripping dark blood (her brother’s blood. Ariadne pushes the thought away).

He has half a mind to help her up on a ship, where the captain spares her a curious glance amidst the chaos. It’s a quick ship, she had observed while she waited. They knew what they were doing.

They leave, and Ariadne focuses hard on not looking back.

*

A few days later, she finds herself wondering in the woods in Naxos.

The skirt of her dress is dirty, muddy around her ankles, and her sandals are made for a palace and a court, not rocks and weeds.

Savages, savages. That’s what they are to the Grecian, savages, simple-minded and blood-thirsty. Have they not seen the markets in Zakros? The wall paintings in Knossos? How can they judge her like this when they’d be goners without her, lost endlessly in the labyrinth’s meanders, even with Asterion dead?

She pulls at her skirt as she walks, her curls bouncing around her shoulders, scratching at one of her arms with the other hand. She was not their guest; it’s a prisoner they saw her as, Minos’ second-born daughter, a priestess of their silly religion, oh, what better a trophy than a princess and a holy woman?

No, not a prisoner, because no, they didn’t object to her running away, merely looked at her in disgust, even though she was wearing clothes like their own and spoke their language instead of hers. 

She pushes branches out of her way now, the sun burning the back of her neck, her head, her arm spread out in front of her. She has no idea what she’s going to do, but she goes on, on, until she burrows where the sun in gentler on her, ribbons of it on her arms and the ground. Exhaustion sits on her shoulders, inside her ribcage, and pushes her to the ground. Ariadne wraps her arms around her knees and sleeps.

*

She wakes in the night, not from the cold, but from a cheerful piping music somewhere close. She stretches back, rolls her shoulders, digs her fingers on the base of her nape. There’s a light dancing around, somewhere not very far, and as she watches it, the music comes closer, and closer, until a mismatched company appears through the trees.

There are goat-men, and dancing goat-children with round cheeks, and women with tangled, wild hair playing drums and bouncing on their steps. In the end of the line, there’s a man, curly hair adorned with flowers and vine leaves, a drinking cup on his hand that he uses to sprinkle wine upon the ground and his company. Some of the kids pass by her, but the women look at her curiously, and the man spreads a commanding hand to stop them on their step.

Ariadne is still tired, and confused, but she doesn’t like the way the man looks at her, or the way he pronounces himself a god, or the way he asks her to follow him.

"But you’re left here", he says, "my little Cretan mare, how could you have hope to go anywhere else? You’re abandoned, so why should you not follow us and turn your sorrow into celebration? I am a god, a god of happiness and joy, and why would you not want to be my wife?"

Ariadne is not used to marriage proposals in the deep of night.

"You’re not my god", she says; "I’m not from here, and I have not heard you before. I’d rather go my way, if you don’t mind."

His eyes sadden, for a moment, but then become threatening, and he spreads his hand to finger at one of her curls. But such a beauty, he insists.

She refuses, arms crossed, brow tense. 

The man tips his head to the side, observing her. 

There is no way she got all the way to Naxos to be abducted by a god.

No, she says for the last time, firmly, feet planted in the ground. She feels all the eyes in this part of the forest on her.

Then, one of the women in the company, her hair loose except for a few curls braided with ribbons of flowers, pokes at the god (he really is a god, it can be seen in his eyes and his hands and the whole of him, Ariadne realizes) with a wooden stick covered with vines. Her eyes, so joyful before, are stern now. 

The god shrugs one shoulder and raises his hand dismissively. The company begins to move away, Ariadne left behind to look at them, confused and tired. The woman with the braids turns around as they leave and winks at her. Ariadne can't help but smile back. 

*

_The floor is warm. Ariadne wiggles her toes against the warmth, breathes deeply. She presses her palms on the ground._

_Phaedra is using one of her ivory combs to untangle the ends of her sister's hair, careful not to pull painfully at them._

_They are alone in this end of the great court._

_"Phaedra?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_"You know you are going to be queen, don't you?"_

_Phaedra huffs._

_"It's not right to speak of this."_

_Ariadne looks down, the corners of her mouth pressed in._

_"But you _are_ going to be, Phaedra. We shouldn't be scared to talk about this."_

_"All right. All right. No, it's not. It's, it's simply that it feels pervasive."_

_Ariadne quietens._

_"I can't be queen alone, Ariadne", Phaedra says a few moments later._

_Ariadne hums in agreement._

_"I don't want to be like father", her sister says, voice small._

_"You'll have me", Ariadne offers, half-turning her head._

_"You shouldn't be like father", she adds a breath later. "Nobody should."_

_Phaedra is running her fingers through her hair now, spreading the curls on her back. Ariadne turns around and takes the comb in hand, like they did years ago when they were children. Phaedra turns her back to her, untangling the pins from her hair and letting it all fall on her back._

_"We need to do something", Ariadne says quietly. It's something she's only now mustering the courage to say._

_Phaedra nods._

*

Ariadne arrives in Crete two weeks later. 

Naxos was easy to navigate, and she only had to find a priestess to ensure food and safety. The Cyclades were allies to the Cretans, with bonds more than just commercial: old beliefs and rituals connected them, and once Ariadne met the great priestess of the island, the recognition was immediate. 

She had to wait for the next scheduled ship to Crete, a slim, easy moving commercial ship with vines painted at its side.

In the end, she finds herself eager to return home.

The sun blinding her, she climbs down the ship, and blesses everything she can think of for the ground beneath her feet. Without care for the crowd in the port, she kneels down and kisses the soil of her home.

Once her head and her gaze are clearer, she can see all eyes stuck on her; she can count the varying emotions. She can feel intense hatred, and she can feel admiration, and she can feel love, and confusion, of course, and then, expectance. She greets those who greet her, and smiles, her heart pounding in her chest. 

Then, she sees the priestesses. 

It's like a committee of them, distinct clothes and hair, and bright, bright faces when they see her, and smiles like they're sharing a secret. They clasp her hands and hug her and eagerly lead her to the eldest one, the great priestess who's taught her almost everything she knows.

"You did right, child", she says after welcoming her back. "But it's not a finished job and it will probably be a long time before you can say you're even remotely done."

She nods, unnerved.

It's Phaedra she sees next. They all walk to the palace together from one of the side roads; it will be some time before she can show herself at court, so they take the way that leads directly to hers and Phaedra's rooms.

And Phaedra, oh Phaedra, she cries when she sees her and Ariadne finds herself crying too, tears spilling and hands clenching on her sister's back as she hugs her. Phaedra had said, you can't do this, you absolutely can't, father will kill you; she'd hugged her before she left and wished her a good luck; but Phaedra had also told her, I know you can do this and I know it's your choice and I will help you, and so she did. 

They had talked about this before she'd left, lying in Phaedra's beddings at night: you're a priestess, Phaedra'd said, father can't shun you because you're under the great priestess' protection. And the great priestess, who had opposed the king's decision to punish Athens, offered Ariadne help and safety and her own power to their cause.

She regards them both from head to toe now; she's known them since they were babies and now here are trying to oppose their father's authority. This won't be easy, she tells them, but it can work. 

"We'll make it work", Ariadne says, stern, and Phaedra chuckles. 

She ushers them all in an inner room, shadowy but comfortable, and they fill Ariadne in with what she doesn't know, but had predicted: Minos' rage, his threats, the council's worries, the people's mixed reactions. Nothing they can't work with. Phaedra is Minos' only heiress, so she will have to gain power inside the council; Ariadne, as a holy woman, has different access to the people. A lot of them almost worship her already; the girls don't doubt there will be stories of her actions for a long time and she doesn't know how to feel about this, but she knows she'll have to use it to her advantage.

It's a thing she can't quite wrap her mind around, herself such a powerful and influential person, but maybe it's for the best, because it's not herself she wants the power for. 

Next to her, Phaedra squeezes her hand momentarily. What a compassionate, loved queen she's going to be, Ariadne thinks. Opposite her, the great priestess has her face turned to the only window, and the sun paints her face golden, gleams on her earrings. The old woman is plotting with a sneaky, delighted smirk, and if Ariadne is going to be a woman of power, she wants to do it with as much joy as the priestess does. 

In a room full of deceitfully giggly girls, Ariadne finds herself not only decisive, but also hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> What really put me off when I reread the myth while preparing for this, was the horrible lack of agency for the women (which should really, not be so surprising). My main objective while writing was to change that, and I hope I succeeded. The rest came along, I suppose!


End file.
